Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hello Duncan and René, Duncan, René correctly stated that I am not actually using my KDE system for this email exchange. Rather, I am using my Windows PC and Gmail within the Chrome browser. However, you have captured my sentiment perfectly! :) Furthermore, you both have offered many great tips--including the tip regarding Google's Noto font. I will certainly look into these avenues as a workaround/fix for my woes. Thank you again for all your wonderful support. I very much appreciate it. Kind regards, -- Mun On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 8:02 PM Duncan <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: > > René J.V. Bertin posted on Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:13:22 +0200 as excerpted: > > > On Tuesday August 01 2023 04:54:34 Duncan wrote: > > > >>What I'm saying is that if you can see them in my message, you /must/ > >>have at least one font installed that can display them! =:^) > > > > Not necessarily if he's using some kind of web interface (in a proper > > browser) which leverages webfonts for this kind of thing. ;^) > > Valid and very good point. > > (Being old-school, or for many I suppose just old, I tend to default to a > local mail client assumption, unless someone specifically says otherwise. > But webmail's likely a more accurate default these days, and for the > browser, not everyone runs uBlock-origin in default-deny mode including no > off-main-site webfonts (or similar) by default for security as I do either, > so they actually see the web-fonts. So valid and very good point, indeed.) > > Rather invalidates my assumptions about having at least one font that > includes those characters, unfortunately, which could then invalidate that > whole workaround... > > Unless of course he's willing to install, perhaps under his home dir, an > appropriate font with the necessary code-point coverage, if there's none > available in the distro fonts packages. FWIW I believe google's noto font > set is supposed to have the widest coverage, and noto sans is what I had > kcharselect set to when I selected the characters. > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman >
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
René J.V. Bertin posted on Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:13:22 +0200 as excerpted: > On Tuesday August 01 2023 04:54:34 Duncan wrote: > >>What I'm saying is that if you can see them in my message, you /must/ >>have at least one font installed that can display them! =:^) > > Not necessarily if he's using some kind of web interface (in a proper > browser) which leverages webfonts for this kind of thing. ;^) Valid and very good point. (Being old-school, or for many I suppose just old, I tend to default to a local mail client assumption, unless someone specifically says otherwise. But webmail's likely a more accurate default these days, and for the browser, not everyone runs uBlock-origin in default-deny mode including no off-main-site webfonts (or similar) by default for security as I do either, so they actually see the web-fonts. So valid and very good point, indeed.) Rather invalidates my assumptions about having at least one font that includes those characters, unfortunately, which could then invalidate that whole workaround... Unless of course he's willing to install, perhaps under his home dir, an appropriate font with the necessary code-point coverage, if there's none available in the distro fonts packages. FWIW I believe google's noto font set is supposed to have the widest coverage, and noto sans is what I had kcharselect set to when I selected the characters. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Tuesday August 01 2023 04:54:34 Duncan wrote: >What I'm saying is that if you can see them in my message, you /must/ have >at least one font installed that can display them! =:^) Not necessarily if he's using some kind of web interface (in a proper browser) which leverages webfonts for this kind of thing. ;^)
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Mun posted on Fri, 28 Jul 2023 11:09:26 -0700 as excerpted: > On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 3:32 AM Duncan <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: >> >> Duncan posted on Thu, 27 Jul 2023 10:24:47 - (UTC) as excerpted: >> >> > > > Your added details were very helpful; but alas, my KDE4 system must not > have the appropriate fonts installed. I could not find any symbols that > looked like the ones you have shown. What I'm saying is that if you can see them in my message, you /must/ have at least one font installed that can display them! =:^) And, even if you can't find them elsewhere (kcharselect, etc), you can see them in -- and copy/paste them from, one desired character at a time if need be -- my message. The caveat may be that whatever font the pager applet is using to display the desktop names may not display the characters you copy/paste into said name. Presumably one of the kde font config font selectors sets the plasmashell/pager font, and if you can find whatever one you're using to see the characters in my message and set that, you should be golden. However, that may be a bit of a search, both for which of the font selectors sets the pager font, and once that's found, for a font on your system (we already know there's at least one, whatever you're viewing the message with) that actually displays those characters. Possibly complicating things is that it might well be the plasma "desktop style" (what 5 calls it, IIRC it was labeled differently in 4) that sets the font for the pager, not an individual kde font setting. If none of the font selectors seem to change the pager font you might try several such desktop styles/themes/whatever and see if /they/ changes the font. Once you find whatever changes it at all, even if it doesn't actually display the desired characters, you're half way there. Then you just need to find a font that displays them. But it should be possible (I'd give it better than a 90% chance). It just might take some time and suitable motivation to get all the pieces discovered and configured properly. But given you were already looking at pager sources, I'm guessing the motivation at least wouldn't be a problem... (As you might have guessed by now I've been in similar situations a many times over the years, including multiple times with various bits of kde. It just burns at you until you can't take it any longer and the priority rises high enough you find you now /make/ the time, even if it means sacrificing something else you wanted/intended to do! And then you ultimately either make it happen, find a satisfactory substitute even if it involves hacking a bit, like scripting/patching up some hack of a solution or using weird naming characters in a totally abnormal and creative context they weren't intended for (which is why I came up with this so fast this time, I've used weird characters for other purposes before so it's no longer an entirely novel hack, here). Or if worse comes to worse, you at least find out exactly /why/ it won't work and when that might change. But my experience anyway is that even if I'm not a programmer, once I'm that motivated, I almost always find /some/ hack I consider suitable, even if it takes me several days (or for a big project with multiple smaller burns like my switch mswindows -> linux or kde3 -> kde4 or kde-plasma5/xorg -> kde-plasma5/wayland before it was as mature as it is now, weeks to months) to get all the pieces working together well enough that it takes that burn away! So while I'm not there to see it happen personally, rest assured I'm here rooting for you, because the general scenario's one I know very well!) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi René, On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 11:40 AM René J.V. Bertin wrote: > > On Friday July 28 2023 11:09:26 Mun wrote: > > >not have the appropriate fonts installed. I could not find any > >symbols that looked like the ones you have shown. In fact, I could > >not find any that were in color. However, I may still try and figure > > I'm pretty certain that Qt4 doesn't handle coloured fonts but the B version > of those symbols should be available in any up-to-date enough Unicode font. I thought that maybe colored fonts were not available on my version of KDE. Quite unfortunate. > Fonts have version numbers too (they're programmes) so don't hesitate to grab > and install a recent copy of some free Google or Ubuntu font. Thank you for the tip! I'll see what I can find. Best regards, -- Mun
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Friday July 28 2023 11:09:26 Mun wrote: >not have the appropriate fonts installed. I could not find any >symbols that looked like the ones you have shown. In fact, I could >not find any that were in color. However, I may still try and figure I'm pretty certain that Qt4 doesn't handle coloured fonts but the B version of those symbols should be available in any up-to-date enough Unicode font. Fonts have version numbers too (they're programmes) so don't hesitate to grab and install a recent copy of some free Google or Ubuntu font.
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi Duncan, Thank you so much for the detailed response! Please see my comments below. On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 3:32 AM Duncan <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: > > Duncan posted on Thu, 27 Jul 2023 10:24:47 - (UTC) as excerpted: > > > Your added details were very helpful; but alas, my KDE4 system must not have the appropriate fonts installed. I could not find any symbols that looked like the ones you have shown. In fact, I could not find any that were in color. However, I may still try and figure out a way to use the symbols I do have to make the various virtual desktop names stand out more than they do currently. Thanks again for all the insight, patience, and suggestions!!! Kind regards, -- Mun > > Missed H/I, inserted above. > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman >
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Duncan posted on Thu, 27 Jul 2023 10:24:47 - (UTC) as excerpted: > Missed H/I, inserted above. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Mun posted on Mon, 17 Jul 2023 11:50:52 -0700 as excerpted: >> It's unlikely to come as a surprise that plasma5's pager has had the >> current-desktop highlighting feature for some time, so that one should >> be taken care of by an upgrade. > > Unfortunately, I don't think I can talk IT into doing a KDE upgrade on > our RHEL7 systems. Interestingly, several years ago when I was using > KDE3 (I think) I was able to install and tweak a different Pager > "Theme(?)" to resolve both the issues I am facing in KDE4. That bit wasn't intended to be of immediate help, but looking forward to whenever, presumably, they /do/ upgrade. That bit's fixed now so it shouldn't any longer be an issue at that point (whenever it is, 2/5/10/ whatever years out), while the other bit (not having a direct option to turn off the window outlines) remains an issue, altho they're much less intrusive now so most people at least should be able to ignore them if desired, now, even if they can't turn them off entirely. >> Plasma5's pager does, however, have an option (that I don't remember >> whether 4 had or not) to display desktop name, number, or nothing. >> With it set to name and the name long enough (and the pager set small >> enough if it's not in a small panel already), it practically obscures >> any window outlines. Of course one can also get create with the names, s/create/creative/ >> pasting in characters like - (hope the character encoding works for >> those, I guess I'll see when I post) from kcharselect instead of using >> normal characters, even further obscuring anything other than the >> displayed desktop name. > > Oh, that is a great tip! I didn't realize I could do that. Hmm, I > tried it but I couldn't find the symbols with colored backgrounds as you > have shown within my version of kcharselect. It was a great idea, > however. I'd have specified them better but don't really consider myself knowing what I'm doing in that area, so just copy/pasted the letters themselves from kcharselect to avoid looking too stupid by specifying a code variant that you couldn't use (say UTF-16 instead of UTF-8, or whatever). But if you can't find it with my previous simple cut/paste, keeping in mind the above caveat, maybe this will let you search kcharselect easier: It's Symbols, Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement (in the symbols, other category). The below is for A in each set, select-pasting the descriptions from (kde5) kcharselect verbatim (so all the code variants it has), with the others following in sequence (with some other stuff between the sets so the sets aren't in unbroken sequence but the letters within a set seem to be): Character: U+1F110 Name: PARENTHESIZED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A General Character Properties Block: Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement Unicode category: Symbol, Other Various Useful Representations UTF-8: 0xF0 0x9F 0x84 0x90 UTF-16: 0xD83C 0xDD10 C octal escaped UTF-8: \360\237\204\220 XML decimal entity: Character: U+1F130 Name: SQUARED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A General Character Properties Block: Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement Unicode category: Symbol, Other Various Useful Representations UTF-8: 0xF0 0x9F 0x84 0xB0 UTF-16: 0xD83C 0xDD30 C octal escaped UTF-8: \360\237\204\260 XML decimal entity: Character: U+1F150 Name: NEGATIVE CIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A General Character Properties Block: Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement Unicode category: Symbol, Other Various Useful Representations UTF-8: 0xF0 0x9F 0x85 0x90 UTF-16: 0xD83C 0xDD50 C octal escaped UTF-8: \360\237\205\220 XML decimal entity: Character: U+1F170 Name: NEGATIVE SQUARED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A General Character Properties Block: Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement Unicode category: Symbol, Other Various Useful Representations UTF-8: 0xF0 0x9F 0x85 0xB0 UTF-16: 0xD83C 0xDD70 C octal escaped UTF-8: \360\237\205\260 XML decimal entity: Character: U+1F1E6 Name: REGIONAL INDICATOR SYMBOL LETTER A General Character Properties Block: Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement Unicode category: Symbol, Other Various Useful Representations UTF-8: 0xF0 0x9F 0x87 0xA6 UTF-16: 0xD83C 0xDDE6 C octal escaped UTF-8: \360\237\207\246 XML decimal entity: If that's still not enough, here's the full negative-squared set (with spaces in between) for your copy/pasting pleasure. Ask if you decide one of the other sets looks more interesting and I can try it too. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi René, Thank you for your reply! On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 3:53 PM René J.V. Bertin wrote: > > On Monday July 17 2023 15:00:41 Mun wrote: > > >> Also, you can install new components via one of the right-click menus. I > >> don't know how many there are still available that work with a Plasma4 > >> desktop but there might be a 3rd party pager that does what you want. > > > >I did find a 3rd party pager, but I need to figure out how to compile > >it on RHEL7. > > Right-click on the taskbar that has your pager, select "Panel Options"/"Add > Widgets..." then "get new widgets"; search for "Pager" in the window that > opens. These should all install without compilation (but as said, no idea > which ones will work under Plasma4; some will install but refuse to run). > Also no idea how things will behave if you run multiple pagers at the same > time... Another great tip! That brought up some options that I will try out :) Thank you and regards, -- Mun
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Monday July 17 2023 15:00:41 Mun wrote: >> Also, you can install new components via one of the right-click menus. I >> don't know how many there are still available that work with a Plasma4 >> desktop but there might be a 3rd party pager that does what you want. > >I did find a 3rd party pager, but I need to figure out how to compile >it on RHEL7. Right-click on the taskbar that has your pager, select "Panel Options"/"Add Widgets..." then "get new widgets"; search for "Pager" in the window that opens. These should all install without compilation (but as said, no idea which ones will work under Plasma4; some will install but refuse to run). Also no idea how things will behave if you run multiple pagers at the same time... R
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi René, On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 12:56 PM René J.V. Bertin wrote: > > On Monday July 17 2023 11:50:52 Mun wrote: > > >Unfortunately, I don't think I can talk IT into doing a KDE upgrade on > >our RHEL7 systems. > > I get the impression you're not a programmer/developer, but in case that's > wrong: I would hope that "IT" have been accommodating enough to install at > least a recent version of the KF5 frameworks so you can run (and build) KDE5 > applications? If so you should be able to install liquidshell into your own > home directory, and use that as your desktopshell. > It's a monolithic application, meaning it has the desktop features, taskbar, > pager, etc. all in a single executable. I also do not know if it does what > you want. Another good idea. When I get some time, I'll look into that. > Also, you can install new components via one of the right-click menus. I > don't know how many there are still available that work with a Plasma4 > desktop but there might be a 3rd party pager that does what you want. I did find a 3rd party pager, but I need to figure out how to compile it on RHEL7. Thanks again for the assistance and suggestions! Regards, -- Mun
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Monday July 17 2023 11:50:52 Mun wrote: >Unfortunately, I don't think I can talk IT into doing a KDE upgrade on >our RHEL7 systems. I get the impression you're not a programmer/developer, but in case that's wrong: I would hope that "IT" have been accommodating enough to install at least a recent version of the KF5 frameworks so you can run (and build) KDE5 applications? If so you should be able to install liquidshell into your own home directory, and use that as your desktopshell. It's a monolithic application, meaning it has the desktop features, taskbar, pager, etc. all in a single executable. I also do not know if it does what you want. Also, you can install new components via one of the right-click menus. I don't know how many there are still available that work with a Plasma4 desktop but there might be a 3rd party pager that does what you want. R.
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi René, Thank you for your quick response. On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 11:46 AM René J.V. Bertin wrote: > > On Monday July 17 2023 11:31:04 Mun wrote: > > >I tried enabling that setting--even though I'm not actually sure what > >it is supposed to do--but I didn't notice any difference in the Pager. > > It allows you to put a different set of widgets on each desktop. You can > surely find a widget that can help to make each desktop visually different. > It's a bit strange that the desktop shell itself doesn't have a possibility > to show a different background image or colour on each desktop. Oh, I understand now what you are saying. That is certainly something I will try to see if it helps. Thank you and best regards, -- Mun
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi Duncan, Thank you for your response. On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 12:39 AM Duncan <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: > > Mun posted on Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:42:40 -0700 as excerpted: > > > I am using KDE4 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL7) and was wondering > > if there is a pager replacement that will do the following: > > > > o Highlight the current Virtual Desktop with a unique color or something > > o Not have any of the window outlines shown within the Pager > > FWIW... > > It's unlikely to come as a surprise that plasma5's pager has had the > current-desktop highlighting feature for some time, so that one should be > taken care of by an upgrade. Unfortunately, I don't think I can talk IT into doing a KDE upgrade on our RHEL7 systems. Interestingly, several years ago when I was using KDE3 (I think) I was able to install and tweak a different Pager "Theme(?)" to resolve both the issues I am facing in KDE4. > While the window outlines are still not optional in plasma5, they're far > less obtrusive (IIRC and as your post implies compared to what I see > here). There's an option to toggle icons for them, but not to remove the > outlines entirely. Yes, you are correct about the option to toggle icons. But turning that on only makes things worse for me--as one may expect. > Plasma5's pager does, however, have an option (that I don't remember > whether 4 had or not) to display desktop name, number, or nothing. With it > set to name and the name long enough (and the pager set small enough if > it's not in a small panel already), it practically obscures any window > outlines. Of course one can also get create with the names, pasting in > characters like - (hope the character encoding works for those, I guess > I'll see when I post) from kcharselect instead of using normal characters, > even further obscuring anything other than the displayed desktop name. Oh, that is a great tip! I didn't realize I could do that. Hmm, I tried it but I couldn't find the symbols with colored backgrounds as you have shown within my version of kcharselect. It was a great idea, however. Thank you and regards, -- Mun > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman >
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Monday July 17 2023 11:31:04 Mun wrote: >I tried enabling that setting--even though I'm not actually sure what >it is supposed to do--but I didn't notice any difference in the Pager. It allows you to put a different set of widgets on each desktop. You can surely find a widget that can help to make each desktop visually different. It's a bit strange that the desktop shell itself doesn't have a possibility to show a different background image or colour on each desktop. R.
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Hi R, Thank you for your reply. On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 3:05 AM René J.V. Bertin wrote: > > On Friday July 14 2023 15:42:40 Mun wrote: > > >o Highlight the current Virtual Desktop with a unique color or something > > In the standard KDE4 pager you can select to have different widgets on each > virtual desktop, which gives you a way to make the different desktops more > recognisable. I tried enabling that setting--even though I'm not actually sure what it is supposed to do--but I didn't notice any difference in the Pager. > >o Not have any of the window outlines shown within the Pager > > You mean the tiny window representations in the taskbar "buttons" > representing the different desktops? I'm surprised anyone actually notices > those... I'm not sure ... I mean the window outlines in each of the Pager's Desktop buttons. You see, I name each of my Desktops, and with the window outlines present it is difficult to read the names of the Desktops. Regards, -- Mun
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
Mun posted on Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:42:40 -0700 as excerpted: > I am using KDE4 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL7) and was wondering > if there is a pager replacement that will do the following: > > o Highlight the current Virtual Desktop with a unique color or something > o Not have any of the window outlines shown within the Pager FWIW... It's unlikely to come as a surprise that plasma5's pager has had the current-desktop highlighting feature for some time, so that one should be taken care of by an upgrade. While the window outlines are still not optional in plasma5, they're far less obtrusive (IIRC and as your post implies compared to what I see here). There's an option to toggle icons for them, but not to remove the outlines entirely. Plasma5's pager does, however, have an option (that I don't remember whether 4 had or not) to display desktop name, number, or nothing. With it set to name and the name long enough (and the pager set small enough if it's not in a small panel already), it practically obscures any window outlines. Of course one can also get create with the names, pasting in characters like - (hope the character encoding works for those, I guess I'll see when I post) from kcharselect instead of using normal characters, even further obscuring anything other than the displayed desktop name. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
Re: KDE4 pager without outlines?
On Friday July 14 2023 15:42:40 Mun wrote: >o Highlight the current Virtual Desktop with a unique color or something In the standard KDE4 pager you can select to have different widgets on each virtual desktop, which gives you a way to make the different desktops more recognisable. >o Not have any of the window outlines shown within the Pager You mean the tiny window representations in the taskbar "buttons" representing the different desktops? I'm surprised anyone actually notices those... R
